After I forced myself to get over the whole Zoey thing we went back to my house and ate breakfast. Then I did the hardest thing one has to do when one is gay. I came out to my Mom and Stepdad. They sat in the living room. Georgia was laying down on my mom's lap, like the little suck-up she is.

Hilary gave me a thumbs up and I took a deep breath and walked into the living room. I placed myself in front of the tv so that they had to look at me. Mom raised an eyebrow and Georgia sat upright.

"Poppy, is there something you want to tell us?" Mom asked as if she already knew.

I gulped and puffed up my chest before I said,

"I'm gay. I like girls."

LaShawn got bug eyes but mom had no reaction. Georgia broke the tension by saying,

"What's gay?"

Then mom laughed and Georgia started laughing because mom was laughing, and I started laughing nervously because I suppose it was better than just standing there. LaShawn started laughing because everyone else was laughing.

"Okay Poppy, thank you for telling me. I'm glad you did, but it doesn't change anything." Mom said.

I sighed in relief.

"We're proud of you," LaShawn said.

I eyed him. He frowned at me when I didn't give him a positive reaction.

"Well, I'm going with Hilary to her house," I said.

"Wait is Hilary your girlfriend?" Mom asked.

"What! No! It's not like that at all. We are just friends, working on an art project. Nothing like that." I quickly spat out, but I could tell the didn't believe me by my red cheeks.

It was Hilary's fault! She's always being so nice to me. She's out to get me I swear it. I'm going to have to be more careful around her.

"Okay Poppy, be home by 10 PM," mom said.

"Okay." I nodded.

Then to make them even more suspicious of me Hilary ran up behind me and hugged me, giving her signature annoying squeal. Mom raised an eyebrow and I laughed nervously, once again peeling the girl off of me.

When I got to Hilary's house it was almost completely different from what I saw at the party. For one everything was clean and neatly organized. Two it had a lot better lighting and there weren't a lot of people standing in the way so I could actually get a good look at things. And lastly, it was bright outside and the natural lighting was doing wonders making the already perfect house look even better.

"My dad and uncle already took the thing apart piece by piece and put it in my room. Come on." She grabbed my hand and dragged me upstairs.

"Where are your parents?" I asked.

"Mom's at work, Dad is helping my uncle. My uncle is building a shed in his back yard. It's why he had the trailer, he rented out for a few days. So we got lucky." She pushed open her room door.

"Whoa," I said.

Her room was completely taken over by the claw machine. Her dresser and nightstand were missing and her bed was pushed all the way against the wall.

"Yeah, I know. But once it's put together it will look better."

"Is that thing going to fit, how are you going to stand it up."

"Glad you asked, hehe, my uncle helped me shrink it three feet. So it is just short enough to fit."

I eyed the pieces. There were four side panel pieces, four tall leg/frame pieces, and four long pieces that held the frame together from the top. All separate. The frame was obviously tampered with, they looked like someone cut them in half and then took out a chunk before fusing the cut halves back together. An eyesore for sure.

"So what's the plan?" I ask.

"I drew out some concept art. Tell me what you think." She ran over to her bed and grabbed her sketch pad. She quickly flipped through the pages, my eyes catching a few amazing sketches.

Despite my best effort, I got jealous. Art was supposed to be my thing but she was obviously better at it than me. Just like she was obviously better at everything than me.

When she finally found the page, she shoved the sketch pad into my hands.

There were sketches of a castle, various ways of castle towers for the frame each of the legs. A brick wall for each of the panels. Then she played around with the claw part sketches of various dragon talons, making it look like a dragon was swooping down into a castle.

"I like it."

"Yes!" she jumped up and down.

"I think this dragon claw looks the best, and these castle towers." I pointed.

"Wow! I was totally thinking the same thing. We are so in sync. Okay, so we better get started. I figure we should so the easy part first, the side panels." She said.

I nodded in agreement.

Then she led me to the garage where she had an unhealthy amount of clay in waiting. We used a dolly to carry up about 25 pounds of it. we also got gloves and a plastic sheet to lay on the floor so we wouldn't make a mess. Plus water and various sculpting tools.

"Okay, I say we make the brick pieces about a half-inch thick each." She instructed.

"Sounds good to me. Let's just block the panels out first and if we have time go back and detail them."

"Works for me."

Then we got to work. She put on some music, turns out we have very similar taste. For some reason unknown to me we both like 2000's music and classic rock. I tried my best not to sing and just focus on cutting the clay and shaping the bricks but when Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne came on I couldn't help but crack.

It started off soft, me just murmuring hey's and you's under my breath. But when the main lyrics started it was actually Hilary who broke first. She just busted out with,

"You're so fine I want you mine you're so delicious."

I couldn't help but laugh at her.

She laughed too and then got up and grabbed my hands and made me stand up too.

"Stop it." I laughed.

"Don't pretend I think you know I'm damn precious. And, hell yeah I'm the mother f-in princess. I can tell you like me too, and you know I'm right." she sang.

I laughed because she didn't curse she said f-ing. She pulled my arms back and forth forcing me to dance with her. I couldn't help but smile at her and dance with her. We jumped around like a couple of preteens hearing the song for the hundredth time.

"Come on, now you," she said, wanting me to sing.

I rolled my eyes and sang, "She's like so, whatever. You could do so much better. I think we should get together now."

"And that's what everyone's talkin' about." Hilary finished for me.

I laughed.

Then together at the top of our lungs, we sang the chorus.

We were jumping around so much and so aggressively that I got winded. When the song was over we collapsed on her bed to catch our breath. We turned to look at each other and laughed at how ridiculous we just were.

"Wow you really got into that," I said trying to catch my breath.

"So did you," she giggled.

"Hey, that song is my guilty pleasure."

"I think it's everyone's guilty pleasure." She rolled over so that she was on top of me.

"What do we have here?" I grabbed her hands and interlocked our fingers.

She giggled.

I smiled up at her.

She smiled down at me.

"Do you remember when we first met?" she asked.

"You mean when I crashed your party?"

"No, before that. At the art fair."

I thought about it, I vaguely recalled the art fair we competed in.

"Was it the one where my statue broke because that soccer's mom's big butt knocked it over?"

"Yeah! Hehe, remember you were so peeved. Kind of scary looking. We were the only two who had a chance of winning and yours was ruined. I told you not to worry about, that it still looked good and you said something like, of course, you would say that Hopeful Hilary."

I cringed, I think I did say something like that, but she made it sound way nicer than I remember.

"Yeah... my bad." I felt my cheeks turn pink.

"No! I thought it wasn't fair either so I knocked over my own sculpture on purpose."

"You did?"

She nodded.

"Why?"

"Because," she squeezed my hands and then pushed them back and down onto the bed, a hand on each side of my head. She was really close now, her chest pressing into mine.

"Because?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Because I wanted to be your friend and talk to you, but you were scary and kind of intimidating. We both lost and that kid with the vase won. Between you and me he totally cheated, I know he bought that vase at the store, I saw the price sticker on the bottom! I thought breaking my sculpture too would get you to talk to me again, but you just said, really hazardous Hilary?"

I cringed again.

"Sorry, I was really mad and you were just in the way of my fire."

"Yeah I figured but ever since then I always wanted to be your friend because I really liked your sculpture. But you were always so... uh... difficult to talk to."

"Wait, that was like two years ago."

"Yeah... I'm bad at talking to new people. I couldn't think of an excuse to talk to you, except for when you came to my party, so I guess it was fate." She smiled.

Fate... or me plotting against her.

The longer I was with her, the more guilty I felt. I mean Zoey was starting to feel like the real bad guy here. Hilary is perfect and nice! She hasn't been mean to me once, in fact, the opposite. She's a way better friend than Zoey ever was.

My stomach twisted into knots and I felt like crying. I'm awful. Hilary never did anything to me but be nice. I am a bad friend. God, Hilary is so perfect that she's actually winning me over. She's way better than I thought. Her powers know no bounds.

"We should get back to work," I try and push her off.

"Nope," she smirked, holding my hands down.

"Hey, what gives?" I struggled under her.

"If you want up then you have to fight for it."

"Oh, you don't want to go there you shrimp. I will crush you."

She giggled and pressed down harder on my hands as if accepting my challenge.

"Fine, but you asked for it," I smirked up at her.

She giggled until I wrapped my legs around her and wiggled my eyebrows. Then her lips made a little o before I pushed hard on her hands and flipped her off the bed to the ground where I was now on top of her.

"Ha! In your face," I stuck my tongue out.

She giggled and quickly pushed me off and instigated a wrestling match. We rolled around on the floor and tried to pin the other. In the end, she used a dirty trick, tickling me. I laughed and lost my grip on her. That's when she flipped me to the ground and pinned me.

Why is she better at everything?

That's so annoying.

"You cheated." I pout.

"All if fair in love and war." She beamed at me with her perfect smile.

"Who said anything about love?" I raised an eyebrow.

Her whole face got red, "Well I, I mean, I wasn't—" she stammered.

"Kidding, geez hysterical Hillary." I teased.

She giggled and let go of me.

"So, as I was saying, time to get back to work." I get up.

She pouts but gets up and joins me again by the clay. This time when we started up again we both sang along to all the songs that played, no longer caring about trying not to look like a fool.

Hilary isn't sooo bad I guess...

I could get used to hanging out with her.

God, I can't believe I just said that.

Don't tell Wes.